"I'm glad." She closed her sketchbook and placed it on the coffee table in front of her. "Is that why you came over?" she asked, and he watched her.
He was in a three-piece suit she knew cost him a pretty penny, but from the way her body was reacting to it, it was definitely worth every cent. The material had a light shine to it, was steel grey, and fit him perfectly.
“I saw your light on, thought it was time to talk.” Her heart picked up. What did he want to talk about?
“Oh?” He walked closer to her and she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him.
“Shelly.” His voice went soft and sweet just saying her name, and she found herself stepping forward.
He grabbed her wrist and looked at her hand. “I’ve missed you.” Her heart stopped, and she looked at him. Closing the space completely, she let herself fall deeper into the dark blue pools of his eyes.
“I missed you too,” she admitted, feeling completely exposed. She’d never done this. Telling a man how she felt was a first. His hand moved up her arm, making her shiver, her skin filling with goosebumps.
She smiled at him, and he pulled her into a hug. She loved how it felt. Safe and secure in his arms.
“Can we go back to how things were?” he asked, his voice sweet and soft in her neck. Her skin prickled, and not in a good way.
“What?” she asked breathlessly, wet hitting her eyes.
“Going on our walks, you not ignoring me …” he kept talking into her neck as she closed her eyes slowly, enjoying the sensation. She breathed in deep, and smelled a woman’s perfume on him. She pressed her lips together, her body stiffening under his touch.
“Right.” She pulled away, and he looked at her. She struggled to smile but knew it wasn’t convincing. Still, she kept at it. “We’re good.”
He looked at her, and she couldn’t read him. He was guarded for some reason, but she couldn’t get herself to think about it too much. She hurt. Everything in her hurt. She was such an idiot.
“Want to finish the sketch you started the other day?” he asked almost cautiously, and she smirked at him, shaking her head.
“It’s done.”
“Oh.” An awkward silence fell between them. She almost wanted to laugh. She needed to shake off what she felt for him. They’d been friends too long.
“You want some wine?” she asked, walking to her fridge.
“Yeah.”
“So how old was this one?” she couldn’t help but ask, though she did tone back how bitchy it wanted to come out.
“What?” his deep voice rumbled, and she looked over her shoulder before she poured his glass.
“Your date.”
“How…”
“You don’t go to these things alone, Alexander.” She poured the glass. “Plus, her perfume is all over you.” She walked to him without looking directly at him. This was the sort of thing she used to talk to him about, she couldn’t act differently. Not now. If she did, she could ruin their friendship.
“Thirty,” he murmured, grabbing the glass from her. She went to her stool and sat on it, not looking at him, sipping from her own glass, trying to let her mind get lost in something else as she stared at the canvas.
“Wow.” She had no sarcastic remark for him. At a loss of words, she picked up a brush and just held it while pretending not to be at an emotional crossroads. She hated how much she missed him. How much she cared.
They drank their glasses of wine in silence. She peeked glances at him sitting on her couch. Her body wanted to go over to him, cuddle against him, let him stroke her hair. She knew he would. As touchy feely as she usually was, he was that way with her too. She wasn’t sure when that had changed or started. As much as she missed it, she couldn’t get herself to move from her stool.
He placed the glass on the coffee table and sat forward, his forearms on his knees.
“You sure we’re okay?” The concern was clear in his tone. She nodded.
“Yeah.” She smiled and rolled her eyes. “I’m just tired,” she told him. The way he looked at her, she knew he didn’t believe her, but he didn’t call her out on it.
“I better get going then...”
“Okay,” she immediately answered, not standing like she usually would to hug him goodbye. She waved her hand at him and turned to the blank canvas in front of her.
“Want to go to lunch tomorrow?” he asked, and it almost sounded hopeful. Lunch and friends. That’s all she’d be to him. God, her heart hurt. Why had she ever wished to fall in love? It stunk!
“I…” She licked her lips. “I have a date.” She wasn’t sure why she lied, but she did. She just couldn’t go back to how things were. Not while she cared so much. She had to figure out a way not to care.
“Oh.”
“I was thinking about getting my hair done before lunch, maybe go and buy a new outfit,” she added like a crazy person. She had wanted to cut her hair, and a new outfit wouldn’t go amiss.
“Wow. Hot date then, huh?” he chimed, placing a hand in his pocket. She looked away.
“Yeah,” she mumbled.
“Is it serious?” he asked. She didn’t look at him.
“When has it ever been serious with me?” she couldn’t help but answer, knowing how ominous she sounded. With a shake to her head, she looked at him and smiled. “I just need a haircut, Grant. Relax, I’m not running off to Argentina with him. You’ll still have me to walk with at nights, okay?”
“Okay. Maybe after your date, we can go for a walk?”
“If I come home, sure,” she added, insinuating a sleepover with a non-existent date. Yup. She’d lost it.
“Right.” His voice sounded tight in her ears, like he was angry, but she didn’t look at him. She was afraid if she did, he’d see how she felt about him.
She heard him walk to the door and open it.
“Rhett is coming this weekend.” Rhett was his and Olivia’s only son. That made her smile.
“Good.”
“He’ll want to see you.”
“He knows he is welcome here anytime.” A long quiet moment fell between them, in which she wanted to look at him but didn’t.
“You sure we’re good?” he asked once more, and if she’d been paying attention, she would have heard the subtle doubt in his voice.
“We’re fine, Alexander.” She tried to sound like she normally would have, and even peeked over her shoulder with a smile that she knew didn’t hit her eyes. “I’m just tired.”
“Right. Good night.”
“Night.” She waved and turned to the blank canvas in front of her. The moment she heard the door latch closed, she exhaled the breath she’d been holding in.
She was stupidly in love with him. As wonderful as it felt to feel, she’d stupidly done it with a man who would never see her as more than a friend.
She was fifty-six and alone.
Frustration and anger surged through her, so much she picked up her glass and threw it against the wall, the shattering sound making her feel somewhat better.
She stood and walked to the couch, pulled the throw blanket over herself, shut her eyes, and tried to forget how she felt.
How hopeful she’d felt when he’d come in and she’d been in her arms. Those few seconds before she smelled a woman’s heavy perfume on him had been like magic. But just like magic, it wasn’t real. Not only that, but she’d made up a fake date. A fake date that had the possibility of her staying over night. God, she was pathetic.
The whole thing sounded like a bad high school movie, where the girl pretends to date someone so that the guy gets jealous and goes after her.
Those were her last thoughts before she drifted to sleep.
Chapter Nine
Present Day
Grant
Shelly was seeing someone.
There was no other explanation for it.
She was hardly ever home. She’d been dressing differently. Her hair had been trimmed and was always fixed up. He hated it. He knew what that m
eant. Women did that sort of shit when they were seeing someone, didn’t they?
She’d even been wearing that damn red lipstick that drove him insane. The one that left him wanting to see what it looked like smeared over his own skin after she marked him. He on the other hand, had not been out with anyone. Not since that night of the Children’s Hospital Charity Event.
The look on her face right before he’d held her had made him feel like he could move mountains. He hadn’t realized that he smelled like Nicole, an attorney who had had too much to drink and whom he’d driven home. She’d hugged him goodnight and had invited him in, but he had declined. But Shelly had smelled her on him and had jumped to other conclusions. He knew she felt whatever was brewing between them, and he had no clue what to do.
Their nightly walks resumed after his apology, but they no longer stopped at the spot she’d shared with him. They walked to the pier and back. Every walk, since the first one he’d joined her on, he’d picked up a damn shell, holding on to it as to help control himself from grabbing her into his arms and making her give in to their feelings. Every night, he mindlessly threw it into the round glass jar by the stairs on his way up to his room. On the nights she wasn’t home, he still went on those damn walks. On those though, he’d picked up rocks instead.
Sitting outside, he thought hard about what to do. All he knew was that he couldn’t keep doing this. This shit had gone on long enough. Almost a year for him. His sixtieth birthday had come and gone a month ago, and he personally knew how precious time was. No one had to remind him of that.
Talk to her, the soft voice whispered in his voice, and he shook his head. It was beyond talking now. It was time to act. His phone rang, and he picked it up from his lap.
“Hello?” he looked out to his minimal yard, the darkness falling over the plain outdoor space.
“Hey, Dad.” He smiled.
“Rhett! How are you?”
“Good. Sorry to call so late. I mixed up my time zones,” his son said. He was currently in Paris.
“You can call anytime, Son, what’s up.”
“I’m pretty sure I heard this wrong… “
“What’s up?”
“Is Shelly moving?” His eyes whipped to her side of the fence, his jaw clenching.
“Not that I know of, why?”
“I heard that Remy’s been talking to her about coming out and do a series…” Remington fucking Drake. His competition in the gallery world had been trying to get Shelly to come over to him for years.
“She hasn’t said anything to me, but I’ll talk to her.”
“Listen, Dad, it’s probably just a rumor. You know how Remy is.” Yeah, he knew. He was a scumbag and an ass. He also knew, if his mind served him correctly, that Remy had tried to take Shelly out on a couple of dates. Could he be the one she was seeing? No way. The thought made his blood boil.
“Right.”
“I’ll be out in two weeks. We can go fishing.” Rhett shared. Grant wanted to let that soothe him, but couldn’t.
“Sounds good, Rhett… Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Night, Dad.” He ended the call and stood up. Angry and frustrated, he was done waiting on his ass.
Chapter Ten
Shelly
Sipping red wine as she looked at the monotone color-filled canvas in front of her, she set her cell phone down on the paint-filled table next to her; a bright smile was playing over her face.
Her best friend in the whole world had just called from Las Vegas to share with her that she had indeed eloped with her first love after thirty-five years apart.
Shelly had always been considered the wild one of the two. Her sweet and docile friend, who was more like a sister after so many years of friendship, had just proven everyone and their mother that they'd been wrong.
Jess was utterly insane!
Who reconnected with an old flame and married them after only seeing one another for three months? Shaking her head, still smiling, she picked up her paintbrush and ignored the happy tears that rolled down her face for her friend.
Shelly might not have been a fan of Scott’s in the past, but Jess deserved love and every happiness that he could give her. It didn't hurt that he'd quickly proven that he'd thankfully grown up into a man who her gentle friend could count on at every turn life threw her.
Unlike herself.
She was in love with her best friend, and there was nothing she could do about it. She’d rather not give a shit. The realistic side of her reminded her that not everyone needed a love like that. But as upbeat and cheerful as she tried to be, she couldn't fight how heavily it sat with her. She’d even stooped as low as staying out at hotels so she didn’t have to come home, to make Grant think she was out. The funny thing was, he didn’t even seem to notice. She’d even tried to dress classier, more his style and the kind of things the women he dated wore.
Nothing.
Not even a mention of it.
Sitting in her studio, his face popped into her mind when she thought about love and happily-ever-afters. He was the one face that really shouldn't be popping up anywhere, but especially those of girlish dreams and wishes.
Somehow sensing her thoughts had strayed to him, she watched as Grant walked past the large bay window she had insisted her contractor add into the small home studio. Carrying his own empty wine glass, he leaned at her open doorway, and if she was anyone else, she might have swooned.
Wearing a soft, worn, light-blue denim shirt that was uncharacteristically tucked out of his more uncharacteristically khaki cargo shorts, he was a sight to behold. To say Grant Alexander was sexy could have been the understatement of the decade. It wasn't only his height of six one and the defined muscle mass at his arms and back, not that they hurt, but it was the way he carried himself.
A senior-esque James Bond, if you could imagine. Gallant, debonair, ridiculously charming, a complete gentlemen with the sense of humor of a cad.
At sixty, he was probably more handsome than ever. She should know, she’d known him for what felt like forever. He owned the space he was in, no matter if it was in a gallery or the doorway of her quirky and bright art studio. She’d never thought of him like that. But that was all she had been thinking about lately. He made what felt like a swarm of butterflies wake up in her belly and made her heart beat as if a hummingbird’s wings were fluttering in there.
"Saw your light on." She wasn't sure if it was the three glasses of red she had consumed, or how emotional the day had been with her best girl finding her bit of happy, but when he spoke to her, her skin filled with goosebumps. "Shell?" His expression told her he was trying to read her mood, and she knew why this was.
Being an artist, and well, just being her, her moods tended to vary. Shaking her head, trying to act normal around him, her eyes still drinking in the sight of him, she swallowed the last bit of the wine in her glass.
"Did you come to steal my wine?" she asked, standing, breaking the hold his blue eyes had over her. Looking at him made her feel like some idiotic pre-teen. She just had to find a way to shift back her feelings for him.
"It's really not my fault you have such great taste in wine, now is it?" he retorted humorously, and she couldn't help the smile that fell over her lips. They might have been incredibly different, but they were both quick with the wit.
"I guess not." She sighed dramatically, grabbed the bottle, and walked to him as he walked toward her. Heaven help her. He's gorgeous, was all she could think as she poured him a glass, trying to ignore the way her body warmed up around him and the silly way she seemed to blush almost constantly around him for the last five months.
Five months.
How could she have known him for almost half her life, yet only five months ago something had somehow shifted between them that made her body react to him unlike to anyone she had ever met? She noticed little things she'd never noticed before. Thankfully, he seemed pretty oblivious to how she'd been feeling, or else it would have ruined everything.
With both her parents gone, she only had a sister and her two nieces, who lived in Washington, her best friend Jess and her kids, and well, Grant and his son Rhett. Grant was a huge part of her life and not only because he was her neighbor and boss. They were best friends.
"Are you going to get a rash wearing clothes without starch?" she asked like she always did when he dressed casually, the soft rumble of his chuckle making her fight the overwhelming need to smile in triumph at making him lighten up.
He was always dressed in designer, tailor-made suits that cost almost as much as one of her paintings. Even in casual wear, he seemed to have walked off an LL Bean Catalog. Something about how well put together he always was had made her want to muss him up. Get him to loosen up and wrinkle up his square ways.
"Very funny." A sexy grin played on his full lips, lips she should not be staring at as if they were the last piece of chocolate on Earth.
Looking away, he moved to her new comfy, teal-blue sofa. That damn sofa! It was when she got it that things had changed. Though if she were being honest with herself, things had shifted before that.
"Shell?" his voice snapped her out her thoughts, and she realized he'd been talking while she'd zoned out to the mere sight of him.
"What?" she asked, narrowing her eyes, trying to get herself together.
"You okay? Is it Jess?" He knew about her medical history. He had been the one she’d gone to when she’d been overwhelmed with worry.
"She eloped," she blurted, not that it was a surprise. Well maybe it would be to their children. Each had two from previous marriages that had both ended in divorce. Grant's surprise was clear, and she shook her head. "I'm fine. I ...I think the paint is getting to me, I don't even know how long I've been in here," she lied. Paint never got to her, because she was always safe about ventilation. "Want to go for a walk?” she stupidly asked, not really paying attention to his answer.
The days were usually warm, but the nights had started to cool down, especially by the beach. She wrapped up in a wool shawl, deep in her thoughts of how childishly she’d been acting. She should just tell him how she was feeling. He would make her see reason of why they wouldn’t work. They’d share a laugh and move on.
Wishing For You (Never Too Late Book 2) Page 4